


Law and Order

by Sky_kiss



Category: Fallout - Fandom, Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, Friendship/Love, Hurt/Comfort, Reminiscing, Robot/Human Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-18
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-05-02 06:01:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5237039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sky_kiss/pseuds/Sky_kiss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He grins at her, "You say you were a defense attorney and we’re gonna have to call it quits.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Law and Order

**Author's Note:**

> No, no, no, Bethesda, I'm not at all bitter. Not at alllll...

It’s one of those scenes right out of every old gumshoe story. Evening, the street empty aside from a few leaves skittering down the broken cement. There’s a bird somewhere but it’s far off. Quiet, like it’s all happening just before the world takes a turn. Nick tucks his hands in his pockets, grinning to himself. 

The hard-nosed detective on his way to spend an evening with the main dame, one femme fatale that’d taken the world by storm. It had a hell of a ring to it, if he did so say. 

There’s some changes to the old cliches, of course. He’s damn certain those stories never stared a synth, the metal man only half put together. And the woman out of time...well, she isn’t exactly prime candidate either, huh? Damn attractive if you liked the species (and hell, he’s got a human’s mind, memories, he can appreciate the ascetics) but not the classic bombshell, legs up to there. 

And hell, those old classics, the heroes of the genre, the Bogey’s, well. They always got the girl in the end. Them? They’re partners. Not perfect noir material. 

The woman in question, Kelly Fisher, woman out of time, without time, whatever you liked, is waiting in the doorway now, leaning against the jam. She’s got an easy grin painted on, a new dress that hangs just like a charm, sunset lighting you couldn’t ever pay for. It’s a hell of an image, one he half imagines she’s conjured up for him. Best thing about her; loved indulging his uh...flair for the dramatic. 

He takes his time, saunters up, savoring the moment. He looks her over, checks the house, pauses a moment before he speaks. Her voice is the one that rings through his head, teasing and a little sing song. Drama, drama, drama….he tips his hat, resting his arm just above her head. Drama...

“Nice place, two hundreds years of wear and tear aside,” it’s not a lie. The house has an old world aesthetic to it, different from the typical wasteland shanty town. There’s still stone, tile; those sturdy, materials you didn’t see much outside of Boston proper, lining the apartment buildings. The furnishings are new, some put together by grateful settlers, others found on her travels. The end result is rather...homey, clean. A damn measure different than most of the places in Diamond City. “Seems like everyone’s doing...well for themselves.” 

She snorts, elbowing him in the stomach, a light, halfway teasing gesture, “We can’t all have Diamond City luxuries.” She’s smiling though and that means something good. Or at least that the world won’t come crashing down around their ears in the next twenty minutes. Kelly offers to take his coat. It’ s a polite gesture, an offer they both know he won’t take her up on. “I like it. I know we aren’t supposed to...live in the past of anything but,” she shrugs, looking around her, “It’s home. Reminds me of how things used to be.” 

“Not a bad thing at all.” The other Nick, the one in his head, doesn’t feel all too different. He’s caught flashes of a home not too unlike this in those fragmented memories. A perfect nuclear family to go alongside it. A hell of a life, if that’s what you wanted. Kelly gestures to the little seating area. There’s a bottle of scotch, two glasses (his just for show), and a pack of cigarettes. He takes the later with a grateful tip of the head, “Never heard you talk about your old life.” 

Kelly chuckles, sinking down beside him on the couch, “Not a lot to say. I wasn’t different from anyone else. A few friends, Nate, Shaun....not much else.” 

“No job?” 

She pours herself a drink, “Lawyer, once upon a time.” 

Nick perks up at that. There isn’t much work to go around for lawyers nowadays, not with the shoot first mentality everyone seemed to have developed, but he knows about them. It’s a mixed bag in his head. He flashes her a grin, “You say you were a defense attorney and we’re gonna have to call it quits.” 

“Well, that’s for me to know, isn’t it?” but her airy little laugh says she wasn’t. She runs a hand through her hair, shaking her head. The look she always got when old memories pushed themselves forward, jumbling her head a bit. A nice gust of wind blows through the front of the house and he makes a mental note to fix the glass panes there soon. Winters in the Commonwealth weren’t much to write home about (turned out irradiating the countryside did wonders for climate control) but it’d still be uncomfortable. The handyman in him won’t sit idly by. Beside him, Kelly shivers a bit, leaning into his side. “I loved it. I don’t… regret giving it up for my family. It was supposed to be...temporary but. God, I loved it.” 

“You got a knack for these things.” 

She lets out a huff of air, bringing her drink up, “How would you know, Nick?” 

“Seen the way you talk to people, the way you uh...work things out. It’s diplomatic. Some of it’s innate, sure, but my money…” he takes a long drag off the cigarette. It’s strange really, if he stops to think. Synth’s didn’t breathe, didn’t have lungs like humans. The rise and fall of their chests, even the lookalikes, the skinjobs, was all just a show. Nick’s memories light up areas of his brain. It provides the bitter taste of nicotine, the burn in the back of his throat. The pleasure that came from indulging a fix. “You learned how to work a courtroom. Translates well.” 

“Maybe.” She shrugs the comment off, clapping her free hand down on his knee, “No point dwelling now. The Commonwealth isn’t exactly screaming for a judicial system.” 

Her tone strikes him as particularly melancholy in that moment. Hell, even if it weren’t for the voice, it’s written across the planes of her face. Subtle, but there, for anyone who knew where to look. He likes to think, after all these months, he knows. There’s something in the way her lips tick down, the way her eyes flick from place to place, never lingering. The breeze comes again. He’s not sure it’s the reason she frowns. 

___________________

She’s had three more drinks and there’s a few more cigs in the tray. Amazing, really, the kind of things booze could do to an organic. Over the years, he’s seen it all. Folks that got real chatty, some depressed, some violent. He’s pretty sure the Survivor falls in some nebulous middle ground. She’s more open but he’s not sure it’s a good thing...just wistful. 

“Remember one case, few years in,” she gestures emphatically, her drink sloshing dangerously close to the edge of her glass. Nick takes it from her with an uncertain grin, ready to stabilize her if she suddenly careens forward. She straightens up a little, folding her knees under her and facing him, “I mean, most people had more things on their mind at the time than court cases, criminal activity but. It was in the news and I was...terrified.” 

The lights were turning on out in the street, one by one. A bit of a delay, really; the sun had ducked beneath the horizon a little over half an hour ago. Meant the generator was on the fritz, most likely. Kelly climbs unsteadily to her feet, moving about the kitchen to gather one candle, another. At one point, he’d be surprised by her owning them but the woman was a hell of packrat. Guess it came with the territory. You lost everything and suddenly hoarding seemed a lot more sane. She sets them on the table, chattering. Nick makes sure to take the lighter. 

“He was a bad guy. Had this...mile long record but we could never make the charges stick. I still remember the Detective taking me aside that day. My hands had been shaking since I woke up that morning. I think he noticed. You guys, you have some kind of supernatural sense for that kind of thing.” 

He smiles a little. You guys. She says it so easily, without a moment’s pause, and it warms him in a way which shouldn’t be becoming for a synth. It feels like acceptance, belonging, and that’s something that's been few and far between in his life. “Give you a pep talk, huh?” 

She snickers, “No. He reminded me why we were there. His exact words were if I “fucked it all up, everything, everything he’d done, that’d be on me.’ Scared the shit out of me.” 

“Stand up guy.” 

“He was the best actually. I got up there and. It struck home, you know?” She smiles, settling back down against his side. Somewhere along the line, it’s become her go-to locale. He can’t mark the time, the place, but it’s a natural progression. She sets a hand on his chest, scratching at a small stain, “It reminded me why I’d wanted to get into law. To help people,” Kelly glanced up at him, pressing her fingers down flat. The pressure feels oddly distributed, some splaying out over skin, some finding holes. Bullets and time written all too clearly, permanently, across his skin, “To protect them.” 

He has memories that say the same. It ain’t a bad thing.

_________________

“Tell me something.”

He runs a hand over his face. The bottle looks...half gone now. He tilts his head, glancing down. He’s half certain it’s more his frame holding her up than any of her own volition. Brown eyes, glassy from the booze, stare back at him, “Gotta be more specific, sweetheart.” 

“I don’t know…’bout your life. Your first few years. Your best case.” She teases her lower lip between her teeth, “Any great loves? Women who have uh...melted our rakish hero’s heart?” 

“The uh...synth bit, gets in the way of that.” 

Kelly hums. She tries to lean forward for her glass but gives up halfway through, “Guess I haven’t noticed. Dunno that I’ve found a girl out there that hasn’t thrown herself at you.” 

“We meeting the same women?” 

She smiles but there’s something in it that says he’s missed the point. As a detective, it rankles at him.

_______________

“You ever think of opening a practice again?” 

Kelly hesitates a moment before she answers, pressing her lips together in consideration. The woman shrugs, leaning away from him a bit. It’s properly, properly dark now, even the streetlights flicking off. It leaves the room suddenly claustrophobic, not extending beyond the flickering candlelight. She sighs, “Can’t really see the point. Why bother with a judicial system? Bullets...bullets solve their problems just as well.” 

“We both know that isn’t real justice.” 

It isn’t but...there’s never been anything else in the Commonwealth. Maybe nothing else in the whole of the country. He likes the thought though. Been buzzing around in his head since she mentioned it. “You dunno. People change. Hell, Diamond City didn’t know they wanted a detective till I showed up,” he snubs the cigarette out in the tray. Far as he can tell, she doesn’t smoke. Been put there for a reason. In case he visited...maybe for the ghoul; was tough to say. “Point is, people don’t know what they need till it’s there in front of them.” 

She brings her drink up to hide a smile, small. If he didn’t know better, he’d say it’s bittersweet, “You’re not wrong, Nick.” With a small sigh, she tucks herself under his arm, “Fisher and Valentine, huh? Joint practice?” 

“I bag em’, you tag em.” 

If he’s honest, it sounds like a hell of a dream. One where the weight of the Commonwealth isn’t hanging off their shoulders, and the system isn’t hanging on by a thread. No Institute, no Brotherhood. Just rebuilding. Writing their own story, new plot, rotating mysteries. He purses his lips, glancing down at her. She’s half asleep now. Human, but charming. The woman tweaks her nose against his chest, “Partners. Doesn’t sound so bad, Nick.” 

The synth smiles. Maybe it’s just the booze, but she seems to slip off a little quicker that night. He pulls the blanket from the back of the couch, draping it over her. He’ll leave, wouldn’t be right to stay, but in a while. Once he knows she’s fully under. “Naw, sweetheart. Not bad at all.”


End file.
